Eurovision 2013 - 14/16/18 May 2013

*coughsplutter* Anke?

I felt the presenting team as a whole cut the mustard last year. This year they did OK but were nothing special.

Yep - Anke was pretty good - she handled the voting very well. But as a whole, the Germans were a bit lacklustre.

I'm REALLY excited already about next year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb-07BeZLCk

Shows how Sweden basically re-invented Eurovision in 2000. 12 years on it's still classy - and compare it to Israel the year before (who had a very small venue to be fair) and you can see the difference.

Birmingham in 1998 was probably the last 'classic' Eurovision. It was beautifully produced - but now appears to be from a different time. Stockholm 2000 still feels modern.

And Katis and Anders were brilliant presenters. Unmatched until Oslo 2010 IMHO.

That opening was brilliant - I got chills on the "Welcome Europe" line!

The graphic design, such as the scoreboarding, was impeccably cool, as was the stage design (the winning song was a bit crap though). To repeat what I said last night in the chatroom, SVT will probably be way and above this years effort.

Watching the 1998 Final back, it seems so unusual now to have each country reading out its "1 point". I much prefer the current method whizzing through the first 7 and just announcing the 8, 10 and 12.

2000 was the second year that the orchestras were got rid of which I suppose freed things up a lot for them.

I think I'm right in remembering the main innovation in 1998 being the scoreboard which was a totally new style and got used for a few years afterwards, possibly until Sweden 2000?

Looking at the voting from 2000 the thing seems odd is that it doesn't re-order throughout the voting, again another innovation that started sometime and had been used ever since

Even for the time it was quite old fashioned imo. It felt like a retrograde step after Oslo 96 and Dublin 97. Where the first steps of modernisation had started. Even if you look at the presenters you went from 20 year old Ronan keating to 60 year old Terry Wogan.
IIRC the guy who produced the set for Dublin 1997 also did the 2009 Moscow set.

I remember my 9 year old self being disappointed with the set. Isreal did much better a year later.

Terry Wogan only really introduced a bit a beginning though, did he not?

To answer earlier Brekkie's question on who'd host the contest if won, probably a combination of Graham Norton, Alex Jones and Fern Cotton.

What, no Tim Willcox or Adam Parsons?

Everyone else around here seems obsessed by them so I thought I might as well get in there first.

By time we next win, I suspect there will have been so many cuts to the Beeb that the BBC News Channel might be the only service left, meaning this is indeed quite a likely scenario.